We stayed an extra day at Wimbee Creek due to thick fog this morning and threat of thunderstorms. Bill is a happy camper; he is fishing and just caught a blue crab. "Sparky" (Bill's nick name for the crab) is now in a bucket in hopes that he will have friends to join him soon. No friends found, Sparky lives! (Bill threw him back).

As we sit here Bill and I are discussing/reflecting on our first 90 days of our adventure. As with most things there are positives and negatives. Biggest negative is missing family; biggest positive is all the new people we have met. There have been good days and bad days. Good days are: not going aground, seeing our first dolphins, visiting new places and all the people who have been so great with their help, guidance, friendship and generosity. Bad days are: going aground, inconsiderate speeding boaters, two people living in a very small space and at times under very stressful situations.

11/5/10

Stayed at the Downtown Marina at Beaufort, SC. Nice town. Marina has a courtesy car so we used it to go to the grocery store. Stocked up on beer and cigarettes.

11/6/10 - 11/8/10

We followed Mike & Francie on 'Anam Cara' to the Skull Creek Marina on Hilton Head Island, SC. Francie found a deal for this marina on Active Captain, pay for one night get the second night free. Francie and Mike invited us to their boat for dinner, great dinner with dessert and a birthday candle for me to blow out. Thanks guys!

Bill & I walked to the Boat House bar and restaurant which is just outside "The Plantation". To leave here and get back they require us to have a pass and go through a guard gate (armed guards). Guess they take their security seriously around here. We watched the last quarter of the Vikings game. Mike joined us for a couple of beers.

Maggie, Chris & Tom on 'Oh Be Joyful' showed up yesterday. They had contacted us when they were outside Beaufort with some mechanical problems so didn't know if we would see them or not. We all got together on 'Anam Cara' to catch up on 'Oh Be Joyful' adventures since we last saw them. Tom (Maggie's cousin) will be leaving them in Savannah to go back to Colorado where he has a job at a ski resort waiting for him. It was great seeing them again.

We have heard from several sources that Georgia has lots of shoaling areas so we have decided we are tired of white knuckle days (stress of not knowing if we will go aground on the next turn), along with the cold weather and will follow 'Anam Cara' and go offshore to avoid the ICW in Georgia and get farther south. It will be an all nighter, about 120 miles, from Hilton Head Island to Fernandina Beach, Florida.

Left the anchorage at Tom Point Creek (MM 495) went aground at MM 512. Charts indicated 12 feet of water but went from 18 feet to 3.5 feet within seconds. Paul & Gaynor on Meridian made a valiant effort in trying to pull us off but we were stuck. Kedging didn't help either. We had to wait about 5 hours for high tide to float us off.

After getting going again we are now at another anchorage located on Wimbee Creek, off Bull River at MM 521. Weather indicates rain and thunderstorms tonight and all day tomorrow then for the next week lots of sunshine.

We must be close by, we heard you on the radio today but couldn't find you, missed the Halloween drinks, have to try later. We are on the ball at Mile716. Be careful around the corner after that. We spent an hour on the sand bar there today!

CHARLESTON, SC

Cheryl11/02/2010, Charleston, SC

We had a great time in Charleston, spending Saturday, Sunday and Monday night at the Charleston City Marina. We did all the touristy things in the historic area; toured a house built in 1825, walked along the Battery, visited several really old cemeteries (on Halloween), did a tour at the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon. I really like Charleston a lot and was glad to visit again. The marina has a free shuttle van which was really nice. We ate out several times but can't really say we had great food, guess we didn't eat at the right places or something.

Thank you to all for the happy birthday wishes........they say 60 is the new 40...........I absolutely agree!!!

Left Charleston this morning and now anchored out at Tom Point Creek (ICW MM 495) along with about 10 other boats. Next stop will be Beaufort, SC.

As it turned out "The Rockpile" was noneventful, no groundings :). Wednesday night we anchored at Prince Creek (ICW Mile Marker 382). We were the only ones there, very peaceful and quiet. Thursday night we stayed at Hazzard Marine in Georgetown, SC. Nice town and marina. Georgetown is the third oldest city in South Carolina. Unlike many small towns we have visited this one seemed to be doing much better financially. The town has lots of restored buildings and homes with many almost 300 years old. We stopped at a fish market and bought 2 pounds of fresh shrimp which we plan on eating when anchored tomorrow night.

Tonight (Friday) we are anchored in Price Creek, just north of Charleston by about 35 miles (ICW Mile Marker 448). The thrill of the day was having a dolphin swimming along side the boat!! We saw 2 alligators; good sized ones around 6 feet each.

We had shrimp on the barbie tonight. Bill is a happy camper tonight; we are finally in a location that he is actually catching fish. Well, 2 very small stingrays and 5 unidentifiable fish (no keepers) so far. One of the stingrays stung his wrist when he tried to get it off the hook - hopefully he won't pull a Steve Irwin!

Tomorrow we will be in Charleston. We plan on spending 3 nights there, great city.

I received an email from someone at Northern Breezes magazine saying they have been following our blog and asked if they could use some of the material, I replied and said sure. If anyone happens to see anything in the magazine in the future let me know.

Wow, we must be colse to each orther. We are in Beaufort 1 Nov. We will call out on the VHF for you. Randy and Dawn

BEAUFORT, NC TO MYRTLE BEACH, SC

Cheryl10/26/2010, Little River, SC

It's been several days since I have written in the blog. When we left Beaufort, NC we anchored out the next two nights - Mile Hammock and Wrightsville Beach. Both were good anchorages. The Mile Hammock anchorage is right next to Camp Lejeune (military base). They must have been practicing since we heard lots of explosions for several hours. Wrightsville Beach anchorage is right in the town. Popular spot to anchor, there was at least 15 other boats also anchored there. We took the dinghy to the town dinghy dock and walked around, had not very good Mexican food.

After we left Wrightsville we stayed the night at St. James Marina in Southport NC. Problem with not writing for the blog within a day or so of each new location I am starting to forget the details of the places we have been. Don't remember a single thing about St. James!!

We are now in South Carolina at the Coquina Yacht Club just outside North Myrtle Beach. We planned on staying here two nights but have decided to extend for another day to do some boat maintenance projects. Nice marina with reasonable price - $1.05/foot with Boat US members. Sunday night we took a taxi to Fat Harold's. Fat Harold's is well known in this area for what is called Beach Music and Shag dancing. It has been about 15 years since I lived in SC but still love Beach Music and watching people Shag. We came back to the marina early to watch the Vikings play Green Bay on the TV in the yacht club lounge. Yesterday we rented a car and just did the typical touristy walking around Myrtle Beach. It rained off and on all day which gave us an excuse to make several stops to have beers/cocktails (like we need an excuse!).

The last week on the ICW has been a little unnerving (to say the least) due to all the boats who love to zoom by causing our boat to drastically rock and the shallow water areas. The water goes from 15 feet to 4 feet in the blink of an eye, lots of shoaling areas particularly around inlets, junctions of other rivers and drainage ditches. Anyone going through this area I would highly recommend carefully reading the navigation sections of the cruising guides which provides info on the known shoaling areas. We have the ICW Waterway Guide which is very helpful. Unfortunately, one area not noted in the guide is where we landed in 3 ½ feet of water (luckily sand bottom)..........stuck and unable to get off it. We hailed on the radio a passing power boat and for the first time ever actually asked for a wake (hoping it might push us to deeper water). They did give us a pretty good wake but we were still stuck. So, we had two options - wait for high tide or call TowBoatUS. Since high tide was not for another 4 hours we elected to call for a tow. The towing guy was there and had us in deeper water in about a half an hour. I highly recommend having unlimited towing insurance for the ICW. The cost for just one tow ($13/foot and $168/hour) exceeds the annual cost for unlimited towing insurance. For the next 20 miles we will be going through an area on the ICW called "The Rockpile", definitely do not want to go aground there.

Short day today we are in Beaufort, NC at the Town Creek Marina (nice marina) for the night. Between Belhaven and Beaufort it is like dolphin alley. We saw lots of dolphin today, wonderful thing to see.

Now, for the bad part of the day and many days so far are the sport fishing boats........today I had enough and got on Channel 16 and reamed out a boat called Soul Mates. The guys were probably going 40 knots right behind us right on our ass then swirved around us and cause a huge wake. Everything went flying down below. I do not understand why these guys have no courtesy to other boaters and think they own the road (or I guess I should say water). Enough said, will not spend my energy on people like that.

Mike & Francie on Anam Cara are also here. Free courtesy car here so Francie and I went to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up a few things, when we got back Mike dingied us to town.

The plan for the next several days is to anchor out. It doesn't look like there is much to see in the way of interesting towns between here and Myrtle Beach.